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Many people are interested in leadership and have the potential to become incredible leaders. Unfortunately, the majority of those people don’t ever realize their potential because they don’t know where to start. Today, I want to offer a leadership development plan that you can use to make those first steps towards establishing yourself as a leader. This plan can be used by engineers of any seniority, or by anybody else in some kind of knowledge-based industry (here’s lookin’ at you architects, accountants and actuaries). I’m calling it The Ultimate Leadership Plan because it’s that awesome. I really believe that if you put these steps into practice, you stand an excellent chance of establishing yourself as a leader in whatever field you chose in fairly short order.

Criteria for an Awesome Leadership Development Plan

To develop this plan for you, I tried to keep a few things in mind to make it as doable as possible. A plan is about as useful as a parka in Texas* if it can’t be put into action. Bearing this in mind, I thought the plan should be:

• Easy to execute
• Affordable
• Accommodating to your schedule
• Repeatable

The plan needs to be easy to execute or you won’t do it, period. Like any other plan or procedure, if it’s a pain just to go through it, there’s no particular incentive to stick with it. I also thought the plan needed to be affordable. There’s no end to the money that can be spent on personal development. I wanted this to be as accessible as possible, so price couldn’t be a major impediment. The plan also needed to be accommodating to your schedule. In all likelihood, you’re a full-time engineer without much in the way of extra time. I wanted the plan to be able to be worked into your existing schedule so that it’s not a huge time suck. Finally, I wanted the plan to be able to be repeated so that you can continue improving your skills with each iteration.

I believe that my Ultimate Leadership Development Plan fits the bill perfectly. So, without further delay, here’s the plan.

Step 1 – Define Your Definite Major Purpose

Your Definite Major Purpose (DMP) is your calling. It’s your raison d’être. It’s what you are truly passionate about and what you want to gear your life’s work towards. A good way to zero in on what your DMP is to ask yourself these three questions:

1. Why am I here?
2. What’s my purpose in life?
3. What fulfills me?

Step 2 – Establish Goals

Once you have your DMP established, you’ll be ready to set goals for yourself with respect to your leadership development. What do you want to accomplish? What will life look like once you’re there? Try your best to make your goals “SMART” (Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound). That way, it will be easy for you to stay on track and see the progress you make over time.

For example, a goal might be to land a lead engineering position for a major project in the next 12 months, or to improve your annual assessment score by 10% by the next assessment.

Step 3 – Read A Lot

Once you’ve got your DMP and some goals established, it’s time to hit the books. It should be easy to find books that line up with your DMP and your goals. There’s something powerful about self-study. It can be done at your own pace, and if you’re not happy with the material you find in one book, you can just move on to another. Often, if you find one author you like, there’s a chance that that author has a bunch of other material you can dig into.

The other wonderful thing about books is that you don’t necessarily have to read them. You heard me. You can listen to audiobooks as an alternative to the traditional book. I do this all the time, and I get about 2 or three books “read” per month during my commute and walking my dog. It’s amazing.

To get you started, here are a few recommended titles to check out.

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You
• The 5 Levels of Leadership: Proven Steps to Maximize Your Potential
• The Titleless Leader: How to Get Things Done When You’re Not in Charge
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t
• Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck–Why Some Thrive Despite Them All
• StrengthsFinder 2.0
• Strengths-Based Leadership

Step 4 – Take Training Courses

This step could be done in parallel with, or before the reading I suggested in Step 3. There are a number of continuing education providers out there who provide courses in a variety of engineering topics, including leadership. These courses are often short, relevant, and affordable.

I recommend you check out PDHengineer.com and 360Training.com for their list of technical and leadership/ business courses as great starting points.

Step 5 – Look for Leadership Opportunities

Now that you’ve been spending some time developing your knowledge, it’s important to start putting your skills into practice. Finding real leadership opportunities isn’t as hard as it may sound. You can find opportunities to lead both inside and outside the office. Obviously, taking on a leadership role at work would be an excellent choice, but that’s not the only way to develop your skills. You can be a leader at your church or school, or in your community or sports team. You could become a coach for a youth rec soccer team. You could volunteer at the YMCA. There’s a ton of things you can do. No matter where you get your experience, it’s valuable. Go find opportunities and jump at them.

Step 6 – Measure Your Progress and Realign

Every so often, it’ll be important to look at your progress to date and evaluate whether you’re on track to achieving your goals. If you are, great! If not, take the opportunity to figure out why, and adjust course to accommodate.

Conclusion

This framework should be appropriate for almost anyone looking to develop their leadership skills. I’d love to know if you put this into practice and how it works out for you. If you have any ideas or comments, let me know in the comments section below. I promise to respond to each message I get.

*To my Texan readers: I’m assuming snow is not a naturally occurring event in your part of the world. If I am mistaken, please forgive my ignorance.